It's Great
Added 2/9/2010
I love this movie! The Iggy Pop And Tom Waits scene Is so Hilarious and Awkward and the oneupmanship is insane! The movie is worth watching just for that.
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What went wrong?
Added 11/29/2009
I just recently stumbled across 'Coffee and Cigarettes' at the library and I thought why not rent it it's free. I would not have paid a penny for this movie. It was extremly painful to sit through. I made it 20 minutes and couldn't take anymore. I'm not going to pretend to be a fan of Jim Jarmusch, but I enjoyed 'Stranger in Paradise' and 'Broken Flowers' which I highly recommend.
The line up of actors were good, but the movie did not deliver. It felt as if all the actors were amateur. I could keep going, but really their is no point. It's just that bad. In the future I'll check out more movies by him. I don't doubt his talent. This one I have to give a one star.
1 out of 3 people found this helpful.
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The Sublime Pleasure of Mixing Coffee, Cigarettes, and Conversation.
Added 12/18/2008
"Cigarettes and coffee, man. That's the combination."--Iggy Pop
This film is better than many reviewers claim. It is a film that will appeal to anyone who has ever experienced the aesthetic pleasure of having a conversation (no matter how inane) over coffee and cigarettes, or to anyone who has ever encountered the social awkwardness of enjoying a smoke amidst the anti-smoking hysteria and worldwide public smoking bans. In 2004 Jim Jarmusch (Stranger Than Paradise; Down by Law) released Coffee and Cigarettes, a collection of short vignettes, several of which had originally aired on Saturday Night Live in the late 80s and early 90s. Shot in black and white, the eleven short vignettes are linked thematically by characters drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes. While some segments are stonger and wittier than others (Cousins, Somewhere in California, Delirium), and while many of the conversations are inane (much like life itself), the cumulative point of Jarmusch's film always remains clear: having a conversation over coffee and cigarettes is one of the most pleasurable experiences in life. When combined, caffeine and nicotine have the power to reveal the sublime humanity in the dreariness of human existence, a point the anti-smoking movement will never understand.
The eleven segments of Coffee and Cigarettes include:
1. Strange to Meet You, which features Roberto Benigni and Steven Wright;
2. Twins, which stars Joie Lee and Cinqué Lee as twins, and Steve Buscemi as a waiter who explains his theory of Elvis Presley's evil twin;
3. Somewhere in California, which features musicians Iggy Pop and Tom Waits, who having quit smoking, believe they are allowed just one more cigarette ("The beauty of quitting is, now that I've quit, I can have one, 'cause I've quit");
4. Those Things'll Kill Ya, which features Joseph Rigano and Vinny Vella, who discuss the health dangers of smoking;
5. Renée, which stars Renée French drinking coffee while reading a gun magazine;
6. No Problem, which features Alex Descas and Isaach De Bankolé as friends who meet and talk over some coffee and cigarettes;
7. Cousins, which stars Cate Blanchett plays both herself and her cousin Shelly, who meet for coffee in a hotel;
8. Jack Shows Meg His Tesla Coil, which features Jack and Meg White of The White Stripes having coffee and cigarettes;
9. Cousins stars British actors Alfred Molina and Steve Coogan, who discuss their careers over tea;
10. Delirium, which features GZA and RZA of the Wu-Tang Clan, who drink caffeine-free herbal tea ("Crisp and clean, no caffeine") as their waiter, played by Bill "Groundhog-Day, Ghostbustin'-ass" Murray, who drinks coffee straight from the pot and suffers from a smoker's hack; and
11. Champagne, which stars William Rice and Taylor Mead who converse during a coffee break.
G. Merritt
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An Off-beat, Hilariously Dry Study of Human Interaction
Added 8/1/2008
If you can only laugh at slap-stick comedic films, you will not like this very much. If you enjoy dry comedic films where the jokes come from the characters' personalities, facial features, and witty dialogues, then you will enjoy most, if not all, the sketches of this film. The comedy comes from what I mentioned before, but it's a better experience watching this movie if you know almost every actor involved. Don't get me wrong, even if you didn't know any actor in the sketches, you would still find this enjoyable due to the excellent interactions between the characters.
As the title I gave for this review suggests, this film is a simple observation of how incredibly hilarious ordinary conversation can be. Irony and awkwardness are prominent themes throughout each of the sketches, and you will want to find out how exactly each conversation ends. None of the sketches run too long because even the few minutes where the characters' are seemingly staring into space trying to figure out what to talk to each other about is completely essential to establish the realism of the situation.
If you find ordinary conversation amusing especially when the talkers are so involved in the conversation, then you will enjoy the sketches in this film. There are no explosions, nudity, scary moments, or even color, just great writing and characterization.
1 out of 2 people found this helpful.
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Different from the Usual
Added 5/26/2008
This film consists of several short segments, consisting of two main characters sitting at a table, drinking coffee (tea, in two segments) and most of them smoking cigarettes. There are few connections between the conversations from one segment to the others, aside from pointing-out that cigarettes and coffee aren't a good lunch, a couple of mentions of inventor Nicolas Tesla and coffee popsicles.
I will admit that this film isn't for everyone and also that I had a hard time writing this review. But, this film is entertaining for people willing to have an open mind about films that go outside the form most movies take. There are some very funny parts in "Coffee and Cigarettes" which had me laughing out loud and other parts where I could feel the discomfort of one character in their segment where the conversation seemed to touch a raw nerve in their companion or themselves. That uncomfortable moment occurs in many real life conversations where we don't know what to say next, if anything, to avoid hurting the other person's feelings.
This film has no definite beginning or ending and there is little in each segment to connect it with the others beyond the coffee (or tea) and cigarettes they are consuming.
Nevertheless, I liked the film and I recommend it to people who like to watch films that go outside the norm.
1 out of 2 people found this helpful.
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